S5E2 Shuhan Wang: A New Framework for Language Education

In another place in our conversation, she says, "It's very hard to crystallize the function of language in our life, because everybody uses it. You cannot really conceptualize the function of language. It's only when you learn another language then you become more aware of your own, and what you stand for."

In our conversation, Dr. Wang shares her efforts to develop a holistic educational framework that not only emphasizes digital literacies but also prioritizes real-world communication outcomes like those she naturally alludes to in her conversation. 

This learner-driven approach allows individuals to set personalized goals and discover the deeper, intrinsic rewards of mastering a language.

In addition, this Framework for language education harmonizes the strengths of both human and artificial intelligence. We take a look at how technologies like ChatGPT are reshaping the landscape of language learning and teaching, while we also commit to the irreplaceable value of human linguistic and cultural education. We discuss how AI can assist in understanding cultural nuances but also recognize its limitations, especially in capturing the rich context of human interaction. 

Through real-world examples, including the challenges and successes of a Chinese immersion program, we highlight the transformative power of language education. Dr. Wang's insights reveal how language learning enhances cognitive development, self-awareness, and global collaboration, all while fostering a sense of cultural identity and community pride. From practical classroom strategies to the integration of contemporary cultural contexts, this episode offers invaluable takeaways for educators, students, and anyone passionate about the profound impact of language and cultural studies.

Enjoy the podcast.

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Transcript

0:00:02.0 Norah Jones: Human intelligence is being combined with and challenged by artificial intelligence in ways that are yet unfolding in meaning for us. My guest for this week, Dr. Shuhan Wang, takes a look at a new framework for considering language, language learning, language teaching, and language use in this challenging world. Enjoy this conversation with my guest, Dr. Shuhan Wang.

0:00:37.1 Speaker 2: Welcome to Season 5, Episode 2 of It's About Language, hosted by Norah Lulich Jones. In this episode, Norah talks with Dr. Shuhan Wang, President of ELE Consulting International, and an international authority on world language education. Listen to the why and how of critically needed changes in language and cultural education in a world that now combines human and artificial intelligence.

0:01:02.2 Norah Jones: It's my pleasure today to introduce my guest and dear colleague and friend, Shuhan Wang to the podcast. And welcome, Shuhan.

0:01:10.0 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Thank you. Thank you, Norah. It's my pleasure to be here. [laughter]

0:01:15.9 Norah Jones: Well, I just would want to make sure that before we begin to talk about what I think is an extraordinary opening to the future, the reason why I wanted you to begin the process of taking a look at where we head as humans, language-speaking animals, I want to make sure I set the stage of your very thorough background, which is fully seen in the biography and can be accessed through the resources at my website, fluency.consulting. But some essences of it, that combination you bring, Shuhan, of practical knowledge, of wide range of languages and studies, the Department of Education at Delaware, National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland, with the Global Seal of Biliteracy, and specifically also in the area of Chinese studies, that you bring such a range of practicality as well as motion; linguistics, as well as instructional strategies to everything we're about to talk about. It's just a phenomenal background that you will be sharing with us today, and I thank you for it.

0:02:39.9 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Well, thank you so much. You're too kind. Are you sure you're talking about me or talking with me? [laughter]

0:02:46.5 Norah Jones: I hope both, my friend. I hope both. Now, part of what we're doing today is you have taken a look at the world as it is unfolding, the nature of language in societies, how we learn languages, why we learn languages, the settings in which we learn languages, and you've come up with some concept of new framework. Set the stage, please, for my listeners as to what your thoughts have been, what your experiences have been, and why you're heading in the direction of what you're calling a new framework for language education.

0:03:28.1 Dr. Shuhan Wang: All right. So I tell you what, I can't take the credit for this wonderful idea, the new framework. It's almost pompous to call it this way, but it really started last year at the beginning of 2023. Asia Society... By the way, that was another very important work connections that I have. I was a education, Chinese language executive director for Chinese Language Initiatives at Asia Society for several years. That was how I started my national work. So I went from Delaware to New York.

0:04:15.6 Dr. Shuhan Wang: So back to 2023, Asia Society asked me to serve on the program committee to help them to organize the national Chinese language conference. And during one of our program meetings, I mentioned that Chinese has been under attack. And also, at that time, it was, ChatGPT was just being released at the end of 2022. Everybody was going like crazy and didn't know what to do with it. And I said we need to have a response to this because as language people, we are directly affected by ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And how about human intelligence? And how do we even respond to all that?

0:05:12.5 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Asia Society was really receptive. And they said, that's a great idea. And I said, so what do you want to do? I said we should write a brochure about that. And they say, okay, so why don't you write it? And so I started writing it. And as I started writing it, I realized, I can't put everything into brochure, one or two pages, because a brochure being brochure needs to be brief, right? And so I started writing it as a real paper. And then during the national language conference last year, we shared with a group of education leaders and they gave the draft, the outlines. And they gave a lot of feedback on how we should respond to all that. So I spent the rest of the month last year writing the paper. And the result was this new framework. So it really is the collective wisdom of so many people in the field, scholars and community members as well, who saw the importance of continuing and actually enhancing language education. So that's the impetus of it and the background.

0:06:37.6 Norah Jones: Language education for human beings, come again, please, to the role of artificial intelligence, there are intimations of why would one even need to study language? One can use the Star Trek-like universal translator. One can work independently to learn what one wants to learn and use the intelligence for the rest, any number of scenarios that are starting to come out already. What is it that you see that are the strengths, the weaknesses, and potentially, the fallacies in taking a look at artificial intelligence with regard to language use and language study?

0:07:33.7 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Norah, to be honest with you, I have to have a sort of a caveat and disclaimer. I really don't know much about artificial intelligence. All right. So that's the background and where I am. And so I start asking a lot of people, what is it? And I did a lot of research. And basically, artificial intelligence really is based on large language data, and then they train them so that they become intelligent to tell us the answers or whatever it is, right? So maybe my description is not very correct. That shows my ignorance in this area. However, that is the core of language education and artificial intelligence. They both are built on human languages. That is definitely the core and undeniable. So it's based on... And then so we, as we, or people, IT people, are so into developing artificial intelligence, but how about the rest of us? What do we do? Are we just forgetting about language learning then? So it's almost like a throw out the, what's the expression? Throw the baby out with the bathwater, right?

0:09:03.3 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And you cannot, not going back to your fundamental, your foundation, and that is what both are sharing. And so the question is that... And we all know, human beings are the only... Although there are a lot of studies on animals that they were using sounds to communicate, right? But after all, in terms of a system of communication, human beings are still the one that's practically the only animal, like you said earlier, that has the ability to have the endowment for language, and we have our own system. And that's why there are hundreds and thousands of languages, right? Because when a group of people get together, they need to communicate. They come up with sound and gestures, and written language or symbols, or whatever to express their meaning, you know.

0:10:06.8 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And so... And when we look at that, so... And we're talking about training artificial intelligence. So how about training human intelligence? So that is the part that I'm pretty passionate about, even though I don't know much about AI, but I'm a defender of HI, that we need to really pay more attention because they are really connected. The processes of developing the AI and HI is very similar. And that's why in a lot of universities, linguistics department is no longer under languages or literatures, they are under the school of cognition, cognitive science, because they recognize that is a cognitive development and the cognitive science, you know. And so we really have to start thinking and looking at languages and how humans learn language as a science, as well as art, we know that, but that's kind of, in a way, I do think this AI movement has infused a new vision, new perspective, and new purpose for language learning. So I thank it for this.

0:11:40.3 Norah Jones: What a wonderful positive end there. And let me reflect as I was listening to you, Shuhan, thinking about the way that the AI base of intelligence is developed, it's looking at usage that has been provided to it. In other words, it looks from the past and brings it into the present. You use the verb developing. And we take a look at, you said the phrase, folks working to communicate their concepts to one another, which is very much of a living and future-oriented state. I'm not sure that we've ever sat and talked about the idea that AI's dependence on the past makes it a little bit difficult for it to have the creativity that humans do in the present and future. Does any of this that I'm saying here resonate with you, with regard to the actual role of AI and human intelligence, with regard to how language works?

0:12:51.9 Dr. Shuhan Wang: You know what? I think everybody in the world, especially those people who are thinkers, really ponder on this question. And I'm not sure the notion that AI is living in the past is really accurate. And I won't be surprised that AI could actually begin to create the language, very similar. That is where AI and humans are still different, right? Because everybody say, okay, AI has been trained to analyze languages and come up with its answers or its way of using it, but basically, it's used past language patterns, right? However, I won't be surprised that AI cannot create the language. And even go into another difference that people are saying is AI cannot replace people because it cannot detect the cultural nuances and so forth. However, I also think that it could be trained if that has enough of data on pragmatics and how people use languages.

0:14:15.2 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Except that the context, and again, we know language use is really very context-dependent and also your interlocutors, the people you are interacting with, that is... But to be honest with you, I think, the science fiction and the real science are telling us, we're moving towards that direction. So I won't be surprised that AI can create. However, so far, human beings still have this advantage of creating, not just analyzing, synthesizing, but we are able to create, very much like the new Benjamin Bloom's cognition table tells us. But the reality here, to me at least, honestly, I feel kind of sheepish in talking about AI, because I really don't know AI. But that kind of give me another perspective in coming from language and being a linguist, applied linguist, and thinking about the relationship, I do feel that there is a lot of commonality and there is a lot to learn from each other.

0:15:49.0 Dr. Shuhan Wang: For one thing though, I think, even we can communicate, like you and I right now, and suppose we didn't know English, and we're using another language to communicate. And I will say, Norah, wait, and let me type in or speak into my cell phone, my smartphone, and then my smartphone, the AI, the lady will talk to you. And then you will say, okay, let me respond to you, and then have your phone responding to me. But I think, we still need to sort of emphasize and think about how human beings really communicate and communicate effectively. And I think that there's a lot of danger if we rely on only machines to do that, right? And not to mention that AI cannot help you to eat. It can help you maybe to order food, but after all, you have to do the eating yourself. So in other words, the social interactions, unless we stop living like human beings and all of us become robots, and then we're just kind of moving around robotically, right? Then... So that goes back to the meaning of living and what does it mean for human existence? That's another story, another podcast.

0:17:25.0 Norah Jones: It certainly is. And a very deep one on that. When you were speaking about these, that, "How does it feel to be human, what is the meaning of living?" Part of that concept has been, it's been part of how language learning has been taking place in classrooms. But sounds like with the new framework, with these... Some of these stressors that we're talking about, that that might need to be more overt. You have a framework image of the purpose of learning overlapping with the product of learning, overlapping with the process of learning. And how do some of these insights into how do we remain human become part of a practical approach to language learning in a framework like you're proposing?

0:18:28.7 Dr. Shuhan Wang: You know what, Norah, this is such a wonderful question. And I think that is, I couldn't say it better, but now you helped me crystallize my thinking, that is, I think the difference between this new framework, the so-called the new framework versus traditional framework, is that I would love to infuse a lot of learner agency in the new framework. And I think this is how the whole, the way we call it new is because in the past, we're telling learners, oh, if you learn X language, you will get a job in the company, make better money, or you will understand the literature of that culture better, or you would be able to communicate better with your grandparents or whatever it is. But it's more or less outside motivation, not necessarily from learners themselves, and not enough credit for learners to figure out why I want to learn this language, how I want to learn it, and then what do I do with the language that I have learned? So that is the framework is focusing on the why, the how, and the what, but it's all coming from the learner's perspective.

0:20:00.6 Dr. Shuhan Wang: The learners are the one who determine, what is my purpose of learning? Because for different people, it could be very different, right? For jobs, for whatever it is, that we talk about. But I would say the way we, as educators, we can show them and let them pick, and they can say all of the above, right? But at least we show them that for the purpose of learning, it's in addition to those economic utility, is really for developing your capacity for learning about a human communication system, a whole system that is called language. So you are learning artificial intelligence in a way, but it's a real language, you know?

0:20:52.4 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And because so many people say what we should do is teach children and learners, students in schools, coding and artificial intelligence, how to do the coding, how to do all the different things, so digital literacy is very important, but you cannot forget about the real literacies that we have. And another thing is that we want to tell students, this is very important, and we usually forget to tell them, is that when you learn about others, another language, another culture, you become... Realize, you learn about yourself, you learn about your own language, your own identity, your own culture, and what's really valuable for you. And you're holding onto your native language and cultures like the wood in the ocean and you wouldn't let go, right? And so you become more aware of who you are. And I think that's a very important part of learning another language, because everybody uses language to communicate.

0:22:06.3 Dr. Shuhan Wang: So we take it for granted, it's very hard to kind of crystallize the function of language in our life, because everybody uses it. And you cannot really conceptualize the function of language. So it's only when you learn another language then you become more aware of your own, and what you stand for. Another thing is, obviously, language, as we said earlier, is a cognitive development. So you're enhancing, developing your own cognition even better, and executive functions. A lot of research on bilingualism have shown that bilingual, really good bilingual people, in other words, they are very proficient in both languages, they show higher level of prioritizing, suppressing noises, and really get the task done. In the meantime, they can multitask and they know the world doesn't only work one way, it could be all different ways, so their world becomes so much more flexible.

0:23:22.8 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And another thing is by learning another language, you connect with people of other languages. And then all of us, to me, the most important thing is the planet is in danger. And so we all need to connect to become stewardess, stewards of our own planet. And I think that connection is so important. And mostly, lastly, I would say, you become... You could have a happier, more productive, more enjoyable life because you are able to go into different languages and cultures, and through your travel or work experience, you really broaden your own world. So that is the purpose of learning. And so let me just stop here talking about the purpose of learning for now. And later, when we get a chance, we can talk about the process of learning and the product of learning.

0:24:27.6 Dr. Shuhan Wang: But focus back... Coming back to the purpose of learning, I want learners to have the agency and come up with why they want to learn this language, because their reason why is different from my mom tells me or my school said I have to have two years of foreign language. And then there's no intrinsic motivation in there. And there's no sense of reward as a result of it. And so we really want learners to be more aware of who they are, what they can do, and they are in control, and having the ownership of learning. To me, that is a key.

0:25:09.2 Norah Jones: That purpose, that first of the three there, has to do so much with the uniqueness, indeed, of humanity, with that flexibility and with that self-understanding. And I go back to what you said earlier about there's replication in AI of what humans can do. But it's not the individual's identity that is tapped here through the learning of a language and the reflection on what then that means to a person's awareness of their identity, their skills, their purpose, their destiny. In incorporating that then, Shuhan, into a framework in which young people do go to classes and do sit, be it in desks or in circles, the how of then we are able to engage their expression of agency, help them to be able to articulate it. Because some may come just because they think that they've got to take two years of something. Isn't it? It's kind of like we have to start with the basics of saying, you will have reasons and some young people know and others don't. So how does this look then? What is part of the process of being able to engage some of these inner knowledges that you just finished talking about?

0:26:55.4 Dr. Shuhan Wang: If I understand your question, I do think that even on day one, when a learner walks into the classroom, I think the teacher could guide them to kind of start thinking about, what can I do with this language? Why do I want to learn this now? And then imagine maybe what can I do at the end of this semester of this year, right? Or at the end of my two years or four years in college or in high school or whatever. And what do I plan to do with this? So to get them to start thinking about it. And along the way, while they're learning everything and usually, language classroom is bogged down by vocabulary and grammar and all that. And we need to elevate the learners and teachers all together, and think about, why do I have to learn all these... A bunch of vocabulary? What is the purpose? Oh, so if I learn this, I know where to go to the bathroom and maybe enjoy my trip in Madrid or Paris or Beijing, right? And so that gives them the reason why they... And also imagining them to be able to use the language. So I don't know if I answer your question correctly, but that's what comes to my mind, right.

0:28:35.9 Norah Jones: Thank you. Yes, because it's a way of just integrating it overtly, asking students, and also as part of the learning process and the consistent reflection. When you are presenting this framework, you presented it to people, you have a chance to have in the back of your mind, what classrooms both for very young children look like and also for older children, what stories can you tell of what you have seen, what you envision, what people have responded to with regard to some of the ideas that can move us forward in these new framework?

0:29:22.4 Dr. Shuhan Wang: You know what? One example, let me give you one example about how language shape not just a student's identity, but really shape a community's identity. And that's pretty much what I was saying that by learning and having Chinese language or whatever language that would be, in your classroom or in your school or in your community in that case, it really shaped the sense of who you are. And I think that's very powerful and that's the purpose of learning. So there is school district which shall remain nameless and the state is nameless, but the new superintendent came on board and then thought, how come all of a sudden in this school we have this Chinese immersion program in our community? And also the program is sort of, it's just two classrooms having Chinese immersion, but all the others are per grade, two classroom per grade, because you need to have that for 50/50, you switch classrooms. And then the other two classes are just monolingual English class.

0:30:57.4 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And some people were saying that they feel that the Chinese immersion classes seems to be more privileged because they are doing more, they are learning more, and seems to be more privileged. And so the superintendent said, okay, so in that case, let's just cancel all the immersion program. And then everybody... No one has it. No one has additional resource and additional benefits. So he killed everybody in the name of equity and budget. However, the parents and even the other teachers, English teachers, and everybody came on board and they were protesting, they were going to the school board, and they were writing to him, email him, and telling him, no, you cannot cancel it. And fundamentally, it boils it down to that is our identity.

0:32:06.9 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Our district is... Our school is so proud to have this Chinese immersion program. And we feel that we are doing something for our future, for our children. And a lot of those kids, some of the kids are already in middle school and high school. They came back to testify in front of the school board and they say, you cannot take away that sense of who we are. That's how we feel. We are Chinese speaking, but we are also part of this community, but we have a lot to contribute to the society. And you cannot take away that sense of identity for us. And parents were saying, that's the joy and pride of our school. You cannot take away.

0:33:04.5 Dr. Shuhan Wang: So they realized that instead of cutting it, canceling it for everybody, they need to make sure equity is done in the real way, so they restructure the daily routines and increased the interaction of English-only and Chinese immersion students, especially Chinese immersion, dual language, 50/50, that's a half time English, a half time Chinese; that English time they could interact with the other kids in English language arts and some other classes. So instead of having only the Chinese immersion going to art class, they would mix with the English class as well, so the school now has a very strong sense of who they are. They want to have both. And they are proud of having that. And that gives you a sense of how learner agency, how that kind of infused to the purpose and the community come up with the purpose themselves, not from outside people telling them what to do.

0:34:21.4 Norah Jones: How does that replicate? How does that identity grow in times where, again, the digital aspect of life can enhance, but also flatten experience? How then does the idea of approaching language education with a new framework help to make that experience, make that invitation to identity become even more overt and powerful, even more desired?

0:35:02.1 Dr. Shuhan Wang: You know what? You said the right word, the million dollar word, experience. Everybody... As human beings, and this is, again, our big difference with AI, is the human beings have experiences and we have stories. So we really need to train our teachers and students to become storytellers. And then, so they can tell. And that's why I always told teachers, please don't keep your language learning, don't keep your school achievement as the best secret in the school. Showcase. Showcase. In the hallway, in the school assembly, when there's an announcement that can be done in the public announcement daily in the morning, students can do that bilingually in whatever language, and showcase their ability, showcase what they can do. And digitally, you can send letters and communication or videos, short of a... In other words, you have to tell your stories.

0:36:15.4 Dr. Shuhan Wang: No one will come to you and tell you your story. Your stories must be coming out from you and share, share them with... And get everybody excited. And tell people that in the community, in the school, you could have this kind of experiences as well. It's not just limited to me, but all you need to do is go into the whole of the language, right? Open, use the key to open the door to go in there to another world. And you can share that. So the more we can share that kind of positive experiences and even negative, because then you can reflect on, where did I do wrong? Is that interculturally that's not appropriate or something went wrong? What was that?

0:37:08.7 Dr. Shuhan Wang: That makes us even better reflective people. And again, I think that's one thing uniquely to us. And actually AI is doing a good job. But when they made a mistake, they continue to improve themselves, right? So why don't we also do more of the reflection and self-correction and that type of thing? But the key is, everybody should be the champion of their own learning, should be the storyteller of their own learning and showcase of what I can do with this. And that kind of can-do attitude, that's going to take you for life.

0:37:52.9 Norah Jones: The can-do attitude and the showcasing of "look what I can do" has come from, if I go back to an earlier part of our conversation, from being exposed to how other people think, how other people do things, how other people sound. And in reflecting on that, one begins to learn for the first time often, that one has say, a cultural approach to things, a certain sound, a language. There are these items about our identity that we don't notice until we get out and we start comparing it with others, and in particular, when we go into different languages and different cultural experiences.

0:38:34.8 Norah Jones: So when we take a look at that positivity, let's go with what is happening right now in society with a large... High level of anxiety, which personally I think comes from a sense of loss of agency for any number of reasons, environmental among them, but also a sense of the digital world is taking what it does... I don't think we've articulated it, mind you. I certainly don't think young people have articulated it, but there's a bit of a sense of the loss of agency and an anxiety, a sense of not being able to reach out and be oneself. Language, as we're talking about it here, those experiences bring excitement about learning something new, but reinforce our identity. Is this something that has been part of your thought process, part of the framework, part of the storytelling that's been going on?

0:39:36.5 Dr. Shuhan Wang: It is absolutely true because if we look at the literature in second language acquisition, and predominantly, whatever the sort of research target is, predominantly, they all show the importance of there is a process of second language acquisition, right? And you need to start with comprehensible input or making input comprehensible. But then you need to have a lot of interaction and interaction refers to interaction with the language itself, interaction with the culture, knowledge, or whatever. But most importantly, social interaction; interaction with learners, peers, teachers and the books and movies, and also with real people, right? Native speakers all the way. And then, so that refers to that interaction is leading us for more practice and leading us to good, comprehensible output. So the whole process in learning another language is input, interaction, output, right?

0:40:57.4 Dr. Shuhan Wang: You cannot skip any part of it. And then going... So building on that concept, recently I'm working on another paper, and I noticed that a lot of people... And again, it's at another conference and then we have national experts talking about language learning, and the state of Chinese language field, in particular. And everybody noticed that there's a lot of anxiety, like what you say. And then I look into... And you saw that in media that they were saying that schools are experiencing higher level of mental health issues, right? Anxiety and all the different things. And the reason could be from environment, from the whole sort of digital world that we live in, and the blur of real and virtual realities, right?

0:41:58.9 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And another thing is that social media, whatever, it takes us to the media content providers' perspectives. And so you're very easily get into a rabbit hole if you are being taken, if you're not careful about that. And so, we all live in this blurred reality. And another thing is pandemic. Pandemic, because of the isolation, the shutdown for two, three years, and all you can interact with is the computer and people in your family. And so, that really created a lot of isolation, the sense of loneliness, the sense of not being able to be in control and not being able to express and know peers to, or somebody to have fun, to talk about this, you know.

0:42:58.1 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And you know what, language learning is one of the medicines that we could give to our kids. Because in order to learn a good language, remember, we go back to the second language acquisition, input, interaction, output? So you need to have a lot of good input, but you need to have a lot of interaction. And what would make a language learning more productive and more meaningful and more... Bringing better outcome is that the classroom has a lot of activities, right? Interviews, role play, and puzzles, jigsaws, and pair work, small group work, all that, right? And so that require you to interact with people and talk about all different things, and talk about your emotions and talk about how your day goes and how you feel, even the weather and all that, and what do you plan to do this weekend, right? And all that is really good medicine for social isolation. And that is another part that we kind of forgot. And that is in the paper when I talk about the process of learning because language learning is conducive for reducing social anxiety.

0:44:29.0 Norah Jones: Language is good medicine. What good news that is. And nothing else; music, being a language itself, also can provide some much healing, but the human language, what a role to play and to do it because of the interaction in the midst then of receiving and then producing. What a powerful, powerful concept.

0:44:56.8 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Yeah, and Norah, what you just mentioned about music, let me give you another example. Recently, over the past two years, a group of colleagues and myself, that we organized this national competition of Chinese songs. And very naively, the first year we have the lyric competition, have... Invite students. And we have three levels: K-5, secondary school, and college, three levels, and have them combine music and language learning, and write lyrics. And then one of my colleagues is a musician. He's a professor of music. And then he and his team composed it and produced a musical video out of those lyrics, and making them into real songs. And so the second year, we were going to run the same competition, but then we thought, you cannot just have students write lyrics all the time and then who's going to sing the songs that they produce? So we said the second year would be musical video competition, that they can choose those songs and sing them. And we also give them another playlist of popular songs, whatever they... Without copyrights and they can choose. I'm telling you, the result was phenomenal.

0:46:29.5 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Phenomenal. And I can add the links to those musical videos because then you could see students are using Chinese to sing, to organize, to work together to produce the videos, and to talk about, discuss the concept, how they are going to do all that, and to express the meaning with the visuals, with the songs. I'm telling you, that is exactly what we want and the output of learning that I talk about in the paper, because it's really not about how fluent you are, how accurate you are in French or Chinese or Japanese, but really, what do you do with the language? And it's not only about in the future, you can work in multinational companies, it's in your whole life. You can enjoy it better, you can entertain, you can foster your talents and do better. I mean, make your life so much more colorful, much more just rich. And, oh, I'm telling you, there's no boundary to that. And then you tap into the pop culture, like the Korean pop cultures and all that, right?

0:47:52.6 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And you can tap into all that. And that's another thing about why we need to have this new framework for, let's say, for Chinese class. Every teacher, Chinese New Year, making dumplings and making egg rolls, and sing and dance the Chinese songs, and then for whatever it is, but they're not thinking about... And if they go to China to visit, they go to the Terracotta soldiers, the tomb, the tomb of the first emperor of China, right? Or another tomb, another great wall, whatever it is. Hey, how about the contemporary life? How do teenagers live their lives? What's in the popular culture and so forth? What does contemporary Taiwan, China, Singapore look like?

0:48:49.3 Dr. Shuhan Wang: We have no idea. And we all talk about and teach them one dynasty after another dynasty, all things in the past, like you were saying earlier about AI using the past language, but we are doing the same thing in language class as well. We're not talking about the contemporary, the world perspectives and all that. Even young kids, they're interested. And a few years ago, there were some... Well, actually, there have been a series of studies on why students want to learn languages. Number one answer is making friends. They want to make friends. They want to have... And they want to understand how teenagers in another culture live and think, and look at the world. How do they approach study? And what's their family relationship? That's why they want to learn. Not about solving the world problem or how glorious this past culture was. But it's a here and now. But of course, we want them to think about the future as well. You can have a better future.

0:50:20.4 Norah Jones: Here and now, future, and how the past might inform it, but nevertheless, how do people learn more about what should they be looking for with regard to the framework and the potential impact, especially those who are in the language educational field to understand where they might find out more? And for those who are looking to see about the high quality outcomes for these excited, secure, talented, flexible people that are coming out of language classes, businesses, organizations, governments, where can they find out more about how it works and keep an eye on the unfolding of this new framework?

0:51:04.7 Dr. Shuhan Wang: You know what? This is actually my next step. I have already scheduled the different workshops in different states, and have people come together. Preferably, I mean, of course, you could have educators and preferably if you have a mixed group of people in the community, business, parents, school administrators and teachers come and talk about that. And then they can make that, because the framework being framework, it's conceptual. It gives you the broad guidelines in how to think about that. But you need to have something that resonate, that speak to the people in your community, what matters to them, right?

0:51:56.1 Dr. Shuhan Wang: So you can make, have a conversation, a forum or a workshop, just to discuss all the three points, the purpose of learning, the process of learning and the product of learning, and have them come up with the advocacy sort of statements that resonate to the people in the community. I think that's very powerful and they can come up with examples or suggestions, and even come up with ideas to do some fundraising to make those a reality, like the experiences that we talk about. And you could have virtual partnerships with the schools in another country, or extend it and start with virtual, and eventually, have a study tour to go to that country and then have exchange program and so forth.

0:52:51.6 Dr. Shuhan Wang: So I think the possibilities are endless, but it all started with having a conversation, take a look, use the paper as the sort of the base, and then talk about. And not only that, in the paper, I use Chinese as example because that's the language I know most. And on the other hand, French has its own purpose and product, whatever it is, and Spanish or Korean or Russian or all different languages, right? And so the community could also, the language community can also make it their own in terms of their language uniqueness, as well as the commonality with English.

0:53:36.5 Norah Jones: Interesting too, because you just made sure that I reminded myself that we may be talking about, say, a standard public or private school room, but we could also be talking about heritage language schools, other kinds of bases of learning where the purpose, the process, and the product are all considered because of the interest of that community. Shuhan, if I were to say, "And here's what... Here's a vision of what it will look like, here is a vision of the humans coming out from your commitment to looking at this three-part framework, having this conversation, considering your identity, this is what you can expect," what story, what vision do you give of what they will see that they might never have seen before or that they'll see at a level of excitement and of, if I may put it this way, utility that they may have not seen before?

0:54:48.0 Dr. Shuhan Wang: You know what? Actually, I've been thinking about that, and I don't really have a great answer. That, again, will be the product of a lot of discussion at any locality, right? But I would say, the first step would be for the community to sit down and talk about how do you imagine your graduates would look like in 5 years or 10 years, or whatever it is? What kind of skills, knowledge, disposition, worldviews, and also attitudes that they need to have in order to be part of this world? We all know that the world, there's no boundary either, you know? And the other day, I was in California and I was in the elevator. And a group of young people walk in, that was in the Silicon Valley. And they walk in and they say, oh, we have a team meeting here, you know? And they're all from different parts of the world. And then they meet up.

0:56:09.0 Dr. Shuhan Wang: And so, they are all speaking in English, right? However, everybody is actually deeper down functioning at another level of understanding the cultural references. The frame of mind is actually not quite the same as Americans speaking in English, you know? And the French or whoever will actually have their own cultural references on top of English code, you know? And so that is something that we need to kind of think about. And it's no longer... The basic skills is no longer just reading and writing in English and math, you know? And we now talk about STEAM or STEM. But that's not enough either, you know? Because we are really having more layers of linguistic and cultural references, and frames on top of the basic skills. So multilingual or language education, or at least one more language would be another skill in the basic skill set.

0:57:26.4 Norah Jones: It's a recipe in which there are lots of delicious ingredients and not just one. And such an important aspect of a global reality that we already are in.

0:57:38.1 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Yeah. And if I may just add one more point to what I meant by adding language into part of the basic skill set, is that everybody is using their own language to do math, right? So there's no reason in the Chinese class they cannot use Chinese to do math or French to do math. So we're not talking about adding another subject matter, but really talking about, again, a new way of structure our content areas, you know? And also another thing that's very important too is that a lot of people actually told me, Shuhan, what you say is really true, but we want to make sure our kids learn English first before they learn Chinese, you know?

0:58:29.3 Dr. Shuhan Wang: But the reality is, if they learn Chinese, their English will be better. And a lot of knowledge and skills are transferable. Reading comprehension, the skills for reading comprehension is the same. The process of writing is the same, except the style may be different, right? But how you train, how you memorize all those vocabulary could be transferable. So learning skills and strategies are all transferable. So don't think that this language is a whole set of monster and the other language is another set of monster. That's not true. They have a lot of commonalities and a lot of knowledge and skills are transferable. So that's why adding language is not adding another monster to our busy... Already very busy, crowded curriculum. It's time to rethink. And you can do that, as we said earlier, arts, music, and all that. And physical sports, you can do the movement, all in different languages. Why not? Cooking, those are another example. So that's my idea about, we're not talking about taking time away, but we're talking about infusing new ways and new perspective of doing the same thing.

1:00:02.3 Norah Jones: Beautifully said. As we now come to where I would ask you, what final reflection, what final exhortation, what would... What did you not yet share that you want to be sure that you say before we end today? Or what do you want to re-emphasize? What are those last things you want to make sure you say to my audience before we leave today?

1:00:27.6 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Wow, thank you for this opportunity, first of all. And I also love this question because that brings me down to the earth now. And being on earth, I am a grandmother of six beautiful grandchildren. So for a very selfless reason, I want to make sure my grandchildren and their children and so forth, will have a future. We have this... It's so important that we have this shared future that everybody can thrive and can live peacefully in health and without suffering too much, right? There's a normal amount of suffering in life, that's for sure. But... So that's my hope. And I also want to say my last hope in the sense of this podcast is language education. And we're talking about language learning.

1:01:31.0 Dr. Shuhan Wang: It's not about learning vocabulary, learning how to say something in another language. It really is deep down, we're talking about making us better, smarter, more compassionate, more open minded, more empathetic people who care about self and also one another. And that's my goal and my passion. And that's my mission in life is to make sure that we have world peace, prosperity. Thank you.

1:02:08.7 Norah Jones: Thank you, Shuhan Wang. It's been a great joy, pleasure, and honor to have you as my guest today.

1:02:15.1 Dr. Shuhan Wang: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you. 1:02:20.3 Norah Jones: I hope you enjoyed this conversation with my guest, Shuhan Wang. Please check out my website, fluency.consulting for more information on Dr. Wang, and to take a look at her resources, directions that she can take you in your understanding of frameworks for education, frameworks for application, and what the world needs in the way of language and cultural studies and applications. Until next time.